Page 18 of Take Me Home

He closed his eyes, breathed in through his nose. “Chicken and waffles.”

“That’s not on the menu.”

He pointed at the photo right there on page five.

Her eyes stayed locked on his, refusing to let him weasel out of saying it.

Pushing his shoulders back, he enunciated slowly so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself. “The Mother Cluckin’ Breakfast Platter.”

“You want it with Granny’s Sloppy Tots?”

“I…do not.”

“What else?”

Hazel snaked a hand forward and pressed her fingertip halfway down the page.

“Really?” he snapped, covering the mouthpiece as though this woman couldn’t both perfectly hear himandread his lips at this proximity.

Hazel squeezed her eyes and mouth shut and nodded.

He turned a polite smile up to their server. “She’ll have theRootin’ Tootin’ Fruitin’ Flapjacks.” Quickly, he added, “No sides. And coffee for both of us. Creamer and twenty sugars for her.”

Emeline hung up the receiver so hard it dinged, dropped an extra bucket of creamer and sweeteners onto their table, and left without a single other word.

Laughter tripped out of Hazel. Twice, she tried and failed to speak before wheezing, “I wanted those tots.”

“Be my guest,” he said, extending the phone to her.

A lingering tremor of amusement shook her shoulders. “Okay, because you were such a good sport with that,” she said on a happy sigh, gesturing vaguely at him, “I’ll bite.”

Ash had entirely forgotten what they’d been talking about.

“You want to know why I don’t go home?” She made a thoughtful face, then straightened and pushed up her sleeves. “Have you ever moved? Before college, I mean.”

“No.”

“Okay. Well, my parents got divorced when I was eleven, and after my mom left, my dad and I moved two streets away. It wasn’t like going to a new city or something. Our old house was stillright there. Only, this new family lived in it, and they changed all these things—repainted the door, took out the hedges. They had a boy, and I remember thinking he probably putStar Warsposters on my walls.”

Ash scoffed in disgust on her behalf.

She sawed her teeth into her bottom lip. “You know what bugged me?”

“What?”

“My parents used to mark my height on the wall in the kitchen. Does your family do that?”

He nodded. “On the back of the laundry room door.”

“When we sold the house, we had to paint over all the marks.And then in the new place, my dad forgot. Or maybe it would have been weird to start a new one halfway up the wall.”

“Sure. I guess.”

“I don’t know why I thought of that now.” She pushed up her sleeves once more and laughed self-consciously. She was quiet a moment, then, “Whatever. Anyway, I used to make my dad drive by the old house all the time so I could see it, and he would, even though he hated going there. And then I’d regret it because I’d see the other family or the things they’d changed, and I’d feel sad. I remember wishing it had burned down or been bulldozed. Eventually, I stopped going back. Even years later, when I got my license, I drove the long way around so I wouldn’t have to see it.”

A vise tightened in Ash’s chest. He hadn’t known her at eleven but had at seventeen and could picture her back then, with long hair she used to straighten and an easy, sweet smile. She hadn’t yet wrapped herself in so many defensive layers. She’d fallen for his best friend, who was fun and charismatic, sure, but also reckless and selfish. Those facts about Justin never bothered Ash until Hazel was under his arm. He’d felt pulled to shield her, though fromwhatexactly he didn’t interrogate too deeply.

Then again, vague worry had always been a default setting for Ash.